MotoBlur integrates e-mail and social networking well. New music player is excellent. Useful Web browser improvements.

Cons

Slow hardware. Poor camera. Video playback issues.

Bottom Line

The Motorola CLIQ XT has some decent ideas, but it needs more juice to make them run smartly.

The Motorola CLIQ XT is a decent Android smartphone with some great touches, such as a music player that heads out to the Internet to summon lyrics and album art. In the world of T-Mobile smartphones, it's a respectable choice, especially for music fans. But in the larger world outside T-Mobile, the CLIQ XTalong with all of T-Mobile's lineupis beginning to feel slow.

Hardware and Text Entry
The CLIQ XT is yet another slab-style smartphone, about average size and weight at 2.3 by 4.6 by .5 inches (HWD) and 4.4 ounces, but with some nice touches. The somewhat small 3.1-inch, 320-by-480 LCD screen is offset by a large, usable trackpad below it, along with raised menu and home buttons that are a step above the silkscreened buttons you see on phones like the Google Nexus One ($179.99-$529.99 list, ). There's a 5-megapixel camera on the back, and the phone comes with black and purple textured back covers. You have to remove the back, but not the battery, to swap the microSD memory card; our 16GB Kingston card worked fine.

The CLIQ XT is a 3G phone for T-Mobile's and foreign networks; it also works on 2.5G EDGE networks and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g. The phone gets average reception on T-Mobile's network. Call quality is goodloud and clear with some in-ear feedback of my own voice. The speakerphone is unusually loud and clear. Transmissions sound true, without background noise coming through. The phone paired easily with my Aliph Jawbone Icon ($99.00, ) Bluetooth headset, and I was able to activate voice dialing while on it. But the Nuance voice dialing system took several seconds to resolve my commands, and misunderstood my name.

Along with the standard two Android software keyboards, you've got an exciting third data entry option here: Swype. Swype is a neat trick; rather than typing on a keyboard, you just drag your finger over all the letters in a word without picking your finger up. With just a little practice, it's very fast. Swype works great for writing emails and text messages. But like most predictive systems, it has real trouble with proper names and especially URLs. When I tried to swipe "pcmag" it kept insisting I was saying "pharoah." If that happens, you can peck out URLs on Swype's keyboard, but the keyboard is narrower and pickier than the standard Android set.

Software and Multimedia
Alas, the CLIQ XT is sluggish to use. Because it runs so many tasks on an inadequate processor and without enough program memory, there are too many pauses in the UI. Motorola needs to quit using the Qualcomm MSM7201A chipset and the Android 1.5 OS. The 7201A is the two-year-old platform that powered the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1 ($179.00 list, ); even on the low end, it's since been superseded by the faster MSM7227 found in the Motorola Devour. Android 1.5 isn't lacking too many important features, but third party programmers are generally writing for newer versions now. Motorola has promised an Android 2.1 update for the CLIQ XT, but it won't say when.

I'm not imagining the performance issues here. I run four benchmark programs on every Android phone, and the CLIQ XT is about as fast as the T-Mobile G1, Motorola CLIQ ($199.99, ), and myTouch 3G ($199.99 direct, ) all around. Those were good phones when they were launched, but they were launched many months ago.

The slow performance is a real pity, because Motorola has added some useful software to the Android 1.5 OS. Start with the browser: Motorola added both pinch-to-zoom and Flash Lite, both of which make it easier to navigate around desktop Web pages. And Motorola's now-familiar MotoBlur layer adds excellent Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Microsoft Exchange integration. T-Mobile's standard TeleNav offers GPS driving directions for $2.99/month.

The CLIQ XT is also an unusually good music phone, thanks to a built-in FM radio and Motorola's terrific new "connected music player." The new music app automatically pulls down album art and lyrics from Tunewiki, streams various radio stations (with album art and lyrics!), lets you explore music videos on YouTube, and lets you see what other users are searching for. It's a great, fun, and free addition to the music experience. Music sounds good both over wired and Bluetooth headphones. But like all MSM7201-based Android phones, the CLIQ XT struggles with video. MP4 files had lip sync issues, and YouTube videos came through in low res.

Motorola has had problems recently with a bad string of cameras, and the CLIQ XT continues the unfortunate trend. Five-megapixel photos taken with the phone are blurry, washed-out, and low-res indoors, with a 1.3-second autofocus delay. Outdoors, daylight shots are sharper but can still look underexposed in the foreground. The video mode takes acceptable-quality 352-by-288 videos are 24 frames per second.

Conclusions
Yes, the CLIQ XT is slow. But unless you're willing to give up the idea of customer support and go for a Google Nexus One, all of T-Mobile's Android phones are slow. It's a big problem for the carrier: they have five Android smartphones, and they're all slow. I'd send self-supporting techies to the Google Nexus One and ordinary folks to the original CLIQ, because I like the CLIQ's hardware keyboard. But if the XT appeals to you, it's a decent choice.

T-Mobile hasn't announced the price or release date for the CLIQ XT yet, but I'm confident it will be a mid-range phone selling for $100-150 with a two-year contract.

Battery life, at 4 hours 31 minutes of talk time, was acceptable but not great for a 3G phone.

About the Author

PCMag.com's lead mobile analyst, Sascha Segan, has reviewed hundreds of smartphones, tablets and other gadgets in more than 13 years with PCMag. He's the head of our Fastest Mobile Networks project, hosts our One Cool Thing daily Web show, and writes opinions on tech and society.
Segan is also a multiple award-winning travel writer. Other than ... See Full Bio

Motorola CLIQ XT (T-Mobile)

Motorola CLIQ XT (T-Mobile)

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